Drug cartel chief gets 25 years in secret proceeding

Behind armed guards and locked doors — in a secret hearing of judicial privacy not even given to some 9/11 terrorists or East Coast mafia dons — Osiel Cardenas Guillen, one of the most feared drug lords in history, was sentenced to 25 years in prison Wednesday.

In a Houston courtroom sealed to the public, he also was ordered to forfeit $50 million, a small slice of his estimated earnings. Cardenas surrendered at least $23 million in cash seizures quietly made over the past year by federal agents.

Cardenas, a 42-year-old native of the border city of Matamoros, Mexico, moved tons of cocaine and made millions of dollars as he ruled the Gulf Cartel drug empire with a viciousness and hands-on style seldom before seen, authorities said.

“Osiel Cardenas Guillen headed one of the most prolific and certainly most violent drug trafficking organizations that Mexico has ever spawned,” said Mike Vigil, a retired Drug Enforcement Administration agent who was based in Latin America as the agency’s chief of international operations.

“He ruled very much like Stalin in that he used massive amounts of violence against his enemies both in the government and those that opposed him in other criminal organizations,” he continued.

The famed drug lord has not been seen publicly since he was ushered in shackles into a Houston courtroom in 2007 to be read his rights when he arrived in Texas.

Despite a protest from the Houston Chronicle on Wednesday that the public had a right to be present for the sentencing of one of the most hunted men in recent times — in a case that has cost American taxpayers millions — U.S. District Judge Hilda Tagle kept the hearing closed without explanation.

Cardenas’ Gulf Cartel is believed responsible for the murders of hundreds of people in Mexico’s drug war.

The hearing, which was guarded by deputy U.S. marshals and security officers, was not even listed on the court’s official schedule until hours after it was over.

It remains to be seen how much of his sentence Cardenas will serve, as much of his prosecution has been handled via closed hearings and sealed documents. He may also get credit for time already served here and in Mexico.

“We strongly believe that the American justice system should operate in the light of day and not in secret,” Jeff Cohen, editor of the Chronicle, later said. “At a minimum, the public should be entitled to an explanation of why secrecy is being granted. That has not happened in the Cardenas case, and it is wrong.”

What little is known about the proceeding came from an e-mailed U.S. Department of Justice news release that said Cardenas pleaded guilty to threatening to kill two U.S. federal agents that were caught driving through his turf in 1999, as well as a Cameron County sheriff’s deputy who was in Texas working undercover as a trafficker moving ton-sized loads of marijuana from Brownsville to Houston.

Cardenas, for whom the U.S. government had offered a $2 million reward, also pleaded guilty to drug smuggling and money laundering.

Cardenas’ four lawyers were in the courtroom, as was Jose Angel Moreno, chief prosecutor for the southern district of Texas, and his legal team. Two fashionable women, apparently friends or family of Cardenas, were ushered into the hearing.

While Moreno and Cardenas’ attorneys all declined to comment after the approximately 25-minute hearing, the top prosecutor later said in the e-mail: “The successful prosecution of Cardenas-Guillen underscores the joint resolve of the United States and Mexico to pursue and prosecute the leadership of the drug trafficking cartels, dismantle their organizations and end the violence and corruption they have spawned.” He would not comment on the secrecy , nor would the U.S. Department of Justice.

As he left the courthouse, chief defense attorney Mike Ramsey added to the secrecy, saying only, “I can’t comment on what didn’t happen.”

Andrew Weissmann, a former U.S. prosecutor now in private practice in New York, called the closed sentencing “highly” unusual, particularly given the right of the public to access courtrooms: “I’ve seen guilty pleas under seal. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a sentencing under seal.”

Cardenas’ biggest claim to infamy is that he created and unleashed the Zetas, a gang of former Mexican special forces soldiers who became his private army and hit squad.

Since Cardenas’ capture by the Mexican army during a wild shootout in 2003 and his later extradition to the U.S., the Zetas have raged against their rivals with a reputation for leaving victims decapitated and butchered in operations known for military precision and discipline.

Cardenas, known by nicknames such as The Ghost and El Loco, surrendered a chance to fight for his freedom at trial in pleading guilty to a reduced number of charges as part of an agreement to cooperate with the U.S. government.

Secrecy — including uncertainty about whether prison time will be served — has been no stranger to the Cardenas case as well as the cases of 14 other Mexican organized crime figures from three cartels who were whisked to the U.S. on the same Boeing 727 in the early morning hours of Jan. 20, 2007.

Among them were two brothers, upper echelon members of the Tijuana Cartel, who agreed to plea bargains within two months of landing. They admitted to roles in racketeering, drug trafficking and the murder or rivals. One got 40 years and the other 30, but the Federal Bureau of Prisons said no one with their names was doing time.

Another player from the Sinaloa Cartel was given credit for time served in Mexico and is to be released in 2016.

Vigil, the former DEA agent, said he remained puzzled why Cardenas was treated in such a veiled manner.

“I have never heard of that for a Mexican drug cartel chieftain,” he said, “nor for individuals in traditional organized crime like John Gotti, Sammy (The Bull) Gravano or any of them, even though they were cooperating.”